Main menu

Keselowski braces for tripleheader at Bristol

August 21, 2012

Brad Keselowski gets his weekend at Bristol off to an early start with the Camping World Truck Series race on Wednesday night. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

What? No NASCAR Whelen Modified Series ride for Brad Keselowski this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway? Surely, the Penske Racing star could have found someone willing to provide wheels so he could run all four races at the high-banked, half-mile track in northeastern Tennessee.

But, no. Keselowski must be content to run only (!) Wednesday night's 200-lap Camping World Truck Series race, Friday night's 250-lap Nationwide Series race and Saturday night's 500-lap Sprint Cup Series race. Seventeen drivers have entered two of the weekend's four races, but Keselowski is the only driver scheduled to run three of the four.

Ryan Newman is the only Cup driver entered in Wednesday night's 150-lap Modified race, and Keselowski is the only Cup driver in the Truck Series race. All told, nine Cup drivers also will run the Nationwide race: Keselowski, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Joe Nemechek, Joey Logano, Mike Bliss, Scott Riggs and Josh Wise. The only full-schedule Nationwide drivers also doing the 500-lap Cup race are Sam Hornish Jr. and Danica Patrick. Recent Truck Series and Nationwide winner Nelson Piquet Jr. plans to run in both series this weekend, as do T.J. Bell, John Wes Townley, Ryan Blaney and Blake Koch.

The Friday night-Saturday night doubleheader at BMS is the first of seven such two-race weekends looming for Patrick, four of them in the next six weekends. She's running the full 33-race Nationwide schedule for JR Motorsports, plus 10 Cup races for Stewart-Haas Racing, including the Daytona 500, Southern 500 and Coca-Cola 600. She'll run seven more Cup races this fall: Bristol, Atlanta, Chicago, Dover, Kansas City, Texas and Phoenix in preparation for the full Cup schedule next year.

Harvick, winless in 23 Cup races this year, goes into the weekend with an old, familiar face back atop the pit box. Former crew chief Shane Wilson has been “reassigned” within Richard Childress Racing and Gil Martin has been named the No. 29 team's crew chief. He and Harvick worked together in 2010 and 2011, when they finished third in Cup points. Harvick asked for--and got--Wilson as crew chief this year. And now, Wilson is gone and Martin is back as eighth-ranked Harvick (just three top-5's and nine top-10's) struggles to hang onto his Chase spot.

And Kyle Busch goes into the weekend with crew chief David Rogers $25,000 poorer and on probation until Oct. 3. The No. 18 Toyota team was penalized Tuesday for having improperly attached weight during last weekend's final Cup practice at Michigan International Speedway. In addition to Rogers, car chief Wesley Sherrill also is on probation until Oct. 3. Busch, 14th-ranked and 11 points out of a wild-card spot in the Chase, was not penalized.